Mivoden & More

Before we left the Olympic National Park area, we spent a bit more time on the coastline. The jagged cliffs are beautiful, and from there you can look over the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Vancouver Island. Gorgeous!

Dungeness Bay is a protected area where we hoped to see lots of interesting birds. We saw a lot of empty beach, a huge bay protected by a natural (?) breakwater and the New Dungeness Lighthouse. The lighthouse is WAY out there! We wouldn’t have been able to identify most of the birds without the help of a knowledgeable guy with a scope.

We did see a Great Blue Heron, and got a shot of his takeoff.

I did notice one house on the beach that might be in my price range…

Loren invited me to join him in a Men’s Retreat at Mivoden, the church’s camp on Hayden Lake in Idaho. On the way, we had to pass the slip where his boat is kept, and we took some gear off the boat preparing for its winterization next week.

Camp Mivoden

This camp is right on Hayden Lake. The facilities are nice, the food even better, and the people running the camp better yet! The most noticeable building is this dormitory, with the interesting three tiered design. There are other dorms, and plenty of buildings for meetings, activities, and of course FOOD! We ate very well!

Plenty of beachfront and a nice big dock means great access with kayaks, paddle boards and ski boats.

Evenings were gorgeous too!

We had some spiritual feasts as well as visual and gastronomical. Lots of stuff to ponder… and as a sideline, an introduction into Bird Language. That’s a fascinating study that I’m hoping to spend some time on.

Just like summer camp for kids, there were lots of activities… but many of these were geared for adult guys. Or adult guys acting like kids.

One of these semi-adult options was to shoot long range rifles. I’ve done very little shooting, so these were a real eye-opener for me. The “closest” of these ranges was 700 yards. That’s almost a half mile. The targets were across a deep ravine, and almost hard to see with your naked eye. We each got a few shots with these rifles, and I had one great shot, right in middle of the biggest target. Another off center on the target, and 5 or so in the adjacent dirt.

Then it was time for the big guy! This is a 50 caliber rifle, or should I say cannon!? Huge! Without scopes you could barely see the targets, 1,000 yards away. That’s over a half mile. We only got one shot each. (Ammo is quite expensive!) I got within a foot of the target… still amazing!

Probably the most fun I had was at the “Forge.” We got to heat up metal and pound on it! (Did I mention this was guys acting like kids?) Some guys started to make knives, some other utilitarian things, but I had to be different. When we visited Colonial Williamsburg years ago, I was fascinated with how they would take a bar of silver and fashion it into a spoon. So I decided to try that… but instead of silver (not readily available at the forge) I used a big hunk of rebar.

[The following pictures of the forge are courtesy of Rich Pince, a nice guy I met there who is also a great photographer!]